Well, that's 2008 finished. For many folks it's not been a good one and I suspect that they are glad to put it behind them.

Beyond the impact of the credit crunch, the Russians and Georgians scrapping and the inevitable Christmas kickoff between Israel and Hamas, 2008 did have a few highlights. The election of Barrack Obama heralded the end of the Bush era and there's not many of us outside the US who are sorry to see THAT happen. Closer to home, the UK olympic team performed amazingly well at the Beijing olympics and Terry Pratchett was knighted in the honours list.

For me, 2008 has had a few memorable highlights; The Hyde Park gig in July was pretty good and an off-the-cuff trip to the Hawk Conservancy proved to be a grand day out. I also managed to get away for a long weekend with my two best pals; a few beers and lots of laughs is always a prescription for happiness. It's also been a pretty good year for work and for the first time in a few years, I've found my skills to be in unusually high demand.

I'm not sure what 2009 will bring us, and I get the feeling it will be a landmark year for many people, myself included.

Here's hoping it will prove to be memorable for all the right reasons...

Well known belly dancer Luli Blue commissioned us to create a new website which showcases her expertise in the Egyptian style. After applying the final touches and completing all the pre-launch testing, we finally published everything today.

Merry Christmas Luli!

...at the George was a good one. Nice to see familiar faces I haven't seen for awhile. Also nice to see that the future is lookin' good for a great team, who are riding off into the sunset, but shortly to return better than ever!

See you all at the 2009 launch.

And remember...

Slide!

Silly season is here again and despite the economic doom and gloom, most of my work colleagues are mentally preparing themselves for the last weekend of shopping before Christmas.

They are all looking pretty grim at the prospect of having to fight their way through crowds of similarly miserable folk, in order to get those last few bits and pieces that they all seem to view as essential to their enjoyment of the day. Many of them seem to be trying to psyche themselves up into having a good time with it all; you can almost hear them muttering: "Christmas WILL be fun" repeatedly through clenched teeth. I can imagine there will be more than a few stressed, twitching staff in the office on Monday.

Which is why I'm bloody grateful that I'm not joining the zombie shopping throng.

Some years ago, Su and I decided that the whole Christmas thing was just not worth the hassle. We don't have kids and my family are 14,000 miles away in NZ. Likewise, Su's family are all up north and even her nieces and nephews are now mostly getting to the age where they know that Santa is a myth.

And neither of us enjoys shopping at the best of times. The idea of having to spend a day traipsing around soulless, crowded shopping malls to get some bit of tat that neither of us gives two figs about anyway is just not on the table, especially at this time of year. We both mostly tend to plan the shopping we are occasionally forced to do (at least if we want to eat) like a military exercise; work out what we need, then work out how to get in, get it and get out as quickly as possible.

We don't bother with any of the other trappings either; no tree, decorations, xmas dinner et all. Christmas dinner in our house is normally a jointly-cooked stir-fry with whatever ingredients happen to be in the cupboards and the fridge, while a little Miles Davis plays on the stereo and we work our way through a half-decent bottle of wine (one for the pot and one for the cooks ). This is mostly followed by a DVD or a little guitar for me and a good book for her. We even manage to have a conversation or two.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not Scrooge; I enjoy catching up with a fair number of friends I haven't seen for awhile during the break and I equally enjoy the opportunity for a bit of time in self-contemplation, without the urgent need to do something or be somewhere. I just don't feel the need to spend large amounts of money I don't have, on crap I don't need.

This approach has now become so normal to me that I'm finding myself starting to view the traditional Christmas as one of the weirdest times of the year. I mean let's face it: it's the only time of the year when most folks sit around a dead or dying tree that they've dragged into their living room, eating candy out of their socks!

Anyway, here's hoping that the rest of the western world manages to get whatever they feel they need to give them all that warm glow of pointless consumerism and that they don't forget to save the receipts and get extra batteries for all the new toys.

Meanwhile, I think I'll open a bottle a few days early.

Cheers!

Jaysuz! Ya couldn't make it up could you? Just when you think that the finance watchdogs of the western world couldn't fuck up any worse, along comes the story of Bernard Madoff and his 50 billion pyramid scheme.

Not only did the SEC fail to perform even a spot inspection of this geezer as a matter of routine, they appear to have entirely ignored / failed to act on information received from an apparently reliable source, advising them of the large-scale Ponzi fraud being perpetuated by Madoff for years!

Not that the investors in the scheme looked any closer! If they had, they might have picked up a fair number of red flags including:-

• Madoff's own brother was assigned to monitor checks and balances in at least one part of the hedge fund.
• Madoff's auditors were a one man and his dog operation housed in a 13ft by 8ft office in Rockland County, New York.
• The management fees being charged by Madoff were significantly lower than any being offered by his Wall street competitors.
• Hardly anyone was ever allowed to meet Madoff in person and the few that did always came away completely clueless as to how he made his money.
• In the more recent turbulent times when every investment on the planet was being shaken and stirred, Madoff's fund continued reporting a 0-2% value increase per month
• And let's not forget the man's name itself! I mean...seriously, would you invest your cash with a guy called "Made off"? You can say this about the bloke: he has certainly lived up to his name.

This colossal financial farce could have been taken directly from Charles Dickens' "Little Dorrit" - except you can guarantee that the thieving bastards responsible won't see the in side of a real debtors prison...they'll just spend a few months in a country club version when the golf course doesn't open until 10am and the Château Grand Traverse is served at room temperature.

Perhaps what we need to do is bring back the Victorian concept of the debtors prison...but only for those who defraud hapless investors on a large scale. We could set a benchmark of...say...a million bucks or more. Then we ensure that the prison is staffed entirely by investors who got royally screwed by these gits and are looking for some serious payback.

Inmates would be obliged to directly perform all their own cooking, laundry, cleaning and ablutions with no access to recreation facilities except:-

• A single chess set with 31 missing pieces
• A single knitting magazine with a pull-out supplement on crocheting bobble hats.
• A single crossword puzzle book with all the puzzles completed
• A single copy of the film: "Wallpapering, pasting and stippling: a DIY guide"

In addition, inmates would be put to work once weekly on a chain gang, digging ditches, building roads etc. Pay will be 1 buck per inmate per day (tax paid ), sent to their creditors. Attempts by inmates to avoid their obligations or bribe any prison official in any way will result in a minimum punishment of an hour's electric shock therapy and waterboarding, the time increasing exponentially on each subsequent occurrence.

Oh - and inmates will serve a minimum of 5 years, the sentence increasing exponentially for every additional million they steal.

Put this system in place and then sit back and watch the honesty bloom on Wall Street!